


The Apprentice

by honeymink



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-06
Updated: 2011-12-06
Packaged: 2017-10-26 23:43:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/289194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeymink/pseuds/honeymink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Having been dead, Bela realises there is a difference between living and surviving.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Apprentice

**I. For now I’ll try to be good**

 

Bela was dead, dead, dead and she had the scars to prove it. Blazing red marks of angry claws had engraved her stomach before the world had gone dark. Then there was hell.

“More tea?” he asked, suddenly so civilized.

She offered him her cup. Candied sugar and heavy cream were on the table. The tea, undoubtedly brewed with Holy water, was hot and delightful. Warily, she took a sip and thought that she didn’t expect Bobby Singer to own tableware. A silver flask and a couple of chipped plates maybe. China, however, certainly not.

“About my assets,” she started.

“Yeah,” he interrupted her. “About that. I was surprised to say the least.”

“What?” A sarcastic smile played about her lips. “You expected me to leave my fortune to a children’s hospital?”

“Well,” he rejoined, defiant. “That’s what I did.” Her eyes stared in disbelief, so he felt compelled to add: “I didn’t exactly expect you to come back from hell.”

“I was bored,” she replied with a lie and looked down at the table where her hands still held the cup. After all, how do you admit to being too indifferent, too insensible, too apathetic for demons to be interested in the corruption of your soul?

A moment later, she had restored her composure by then, the plan was fully formed. In the end, Bela Talbot was more than her inheritance.

“Look, Bobby, all I need is a car, some weapons and my little black book,” she enquired, praying silently that he didn’t donate her clientele list to some bloody hunter or the sodding Winchesters, God forbid!

“Is that doable?” she added while he hesitated.

“Yeah,” he finally agreed. “But it’s gonna cost you.”

‘There is no such thing as free tea’, Bela thought, listened and paled. Because what he told her then, appeared to be thought up only to spoil her day.

“Is that a proposition?” she asked.

Bobby almost smiled, “More of a sly suggestion.”

He dangled some car keys in front of her. Of a battered truck, no doubt. She looked at them sourly before making an attempt to grab them. And failing. The girl had appeared out of nowhere.

“I drive!”

***

 **II. For once I was careful and smart**

 

No good deed, Bela found, ever went unpunished. She wondered what the girl, or her mother for that matter, had on Bobby to make him ask such abhorrent favours.

“I’m not looking to make friends,” the girl said seriously, clinging to the rope that was secured on the steel guard balustrade of the rooftop. “To be frank, I don’t think I trust you.”

Jo was blonde and rude and American. In a way, she was Bobby without the baseball cap.

Bela, abseiling further, rolled her eyes, “So glad we figured that out, love!”

Hunters were a self-righteous pack, fractious and mostly wantonly frivolous. That was true for the young even more than for those scarce ones those who lived to see old age. And there was little she despised more. The feeling, of course, appeared to be mutual. Bela sighed. It would be hard earning her black book back, one page at a time, by teaching Jo prudence of all things.

“So this amulet we’re stealing…” Jo started, coming to a halt.

“Makes you see spirits,” Bela explained, cutting through the glass. “You know, not the angry kind, but some you might actually want to see.”

“Like someone you wish for? ” Jo pondered, then added hurriedly. “Pretty dangerous exhibiting it in a museum then, I’d say.”

“Exactly why we are … re-allocating it,” Bela explained, glancing at Jo from the corner of her eye.

In and out of the museum, ideally with the amulet, that was the plan. However, as they entered the workshop, she could already tell this wasn’t going to happen. The girl found the charm first. She cradled it in her hands, carefully studying the inscription. Bela knew, either Jo would be virtuous and try to destroy it. Or desire would be taking over and the girl would claim the amulet for herself, hoping to reconnect with the past. There was always a friend, a fling, a father. The thought of the latter sickened her.

Jo’s lips began to move, whispering an incantation, once, twice; confirming the abuse that Bela had suspected to happen, confirming, what she had always known: People were weak and predictable, a disappointment in general. Not that she had expected Jo to be different. Lissomely, Bela uncapped the phial, splashing the potion over the amulet.

“I’m going to kill you!” Jo gasped, dropping the corroding metal, acid burning into her flesh.

“Why on earth would you want to do that? I thought we were the best of enemies!” Bela smiled as Jo glared at her. “Darling, you have a lot to learn about survival.”

***

 **III. Forever looking for a miracle**

 

The table stood by the fireplace; its sill carried the candelabra. The candles’ light exuded dampened over her audience. Two statues lurked in the stony shadows, sustaining the fireplace since their creator had put them there. Next to one of their savage heads stood Jo, mocking the scene.

“Draw a card,” Bela asked and the man complied.

Judging by his fearfully furrowed brows, his hand was bad. Crippled ears, his hairline lowered in a way that his temples and cheeks attained an apish silhouette: Beyond question it could be deduced, this was someone who wanted to kill while fearing death himself. On his beret glittered jewellery, but no light reached his face.

“Death,” Bela announced and put the card in a row with the others.

The man bent over, touching the card, then withdrew the hand and examined it. His son did the same, yet more quickly. The mother resisted the impulse, she didn’t have to feel, she saw.

“Blood!” she exclaimed.

Bela held out her hands, palms upwards; there were scratches on them like the marks of an adversary’s nails or of thorns. Blood was nowhere to be seen. The son looked at his hands again, his face white like coated with ash.

“It’s on a cloth in her right sleeve,” Jo volunteered, her voice bored.

As Bela stared at her in disbelief, realisation spread on her clients’ faces.

***

 

It was only half past midnight and already Bela’s day had gone horribly wrong. The banshee’s awful wail of death followed them as they fled from the house. They ran and ran what seemed for miles. Once they finally reached the motel, Bela couldn’t think of anything but putting Jo over her knee.

“This was unacceptable,” she hissed, taking Jo by surprise and pinning her to the wall.

Jo, still out of breath, smirked. “Admit it, you felt alive.”

Shocked, Bela released her grip a bit, realising Jo was right. For the first time, it seemed that her options weren’t just between death and survival. Jo’s lips took her aback. Eagerly she tasted the salt on them and got lost for a moment.

Finally, following her original intention of pulling Jo’s trousers down, of spanking her senseless, Bela broke the kiss.

“You know,” Bela remarked, a sardonic smile on her lips. “It really is the height of pessimism to have your knickers lined with chain mail."

 

 **~Fin~**


End file.
